[afavour]

You don’t need the guns if you have people on the inside. And a good number of the rioters seemed really quite surprised when law enforcement fought back against them. After all, they were carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, surely the cops are on their side!

(and besides, there were a good number of people with guns at the protest. And some others brought pipe bombs. Thankfully neither ended up being a factor but no one would have known that at the time)

[throwaway316943]

Doesn’t add up. How are you going to hold the Capitol or any hostages without weapons?

[afavour]

As I said, they did have weapons. Not an overwhelming amount of them certainly, but more than enough to pose a threat if they managed to capture Nancy Pelosi.

And again: if you have the support of the police (and potentially also the armed forces) it’s all pretty moot anyway.

[nl]

The QAnon "storm" narrative revolved around unnamed "true patriots" within some unnamed national security service rising up to overthrow the corrupt.. something.

Or at least that's the common interpretation of QAnon ramblings.

But the point is that there wasn't any centralised leadership plotting this. There was some groups (who did have weapons) who were absolutely planning this, but the protestors in general was much more decentralized in purpose and method.

[three_seagrass]

The FBI divulged this morning that the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, were trying to trap congress members in the underground tunnels of the capitol to gas them.

[masonic]

No, they didn't. FBI charging documents make zero references to any of the OK defendants possessing any form of lethal, or even irritant, gas weapons.

[sluice]

masonic is ignoring the possibility that "gas" talk was figurative. It was reported that Oathkeeper Thomas Edward Caldwell received facebook messages during the insurrection: “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down,” and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps,” and “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,” according to the FBI.

Perhaps "seal them in, turn on gas" was a figurative way of saying "trap them and kill them". Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy...

[three_seagrass]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

FBI charging documents do make references to the telecommunications of the OK defendants, where they are trying to trap and gas congress people under the capitol.

[DrScump]

Hrm. You made a very specific (and false) claim, got called on it, and now you say "references to... trying to..." in apparent attempt to weasel around it.

Neither the FBI nor Capitol Police has made claim that any lethal gas was present, period. Not in possession of "Oath Keepers" or otherwise. Not in "underground tunnels" or anywhere else.

No reputable news agency seems to be claiming thus, either.

So, the burden is on the claimant to show that this isn't pure narrative fantasy.